Stone Cold Lock Of The Century - Of The Week: Coach Calipari As SEC Coach Of The Year?

“Look Cal, this is what SEC COY’s do.  Trust me man.”

It’s no secret that the SEC outside of Kentucky has been awful in out of conference play this year, so I’m going to pose you a question.  Has John Calipari – absent an SEC season collapse for Kentucky – already locked up SEC Coach of the Year?

The case for:

-A lot of people had this Kentucky team coming in second or third in the SEC East prior to the season – and that was with Enes Kanter still being a question mark.  At this point, those same writers are putting out the ‘Can Kentucky make it to the final four on the back of Josh Harrellson’ stories.

–Ken Pomeroy has the Cats only losing once in conference, playing in Nashville against Vanderbilt (and only losing by one, have you.)  He also crunched the numbers and he gives Kentucky almost a 50% chance to finish the conference play with 14 wins.  Change that to 13 wins, and it’s up to 75%.  Who’s better in conference?  No one.

-Outside of Kentucky, Georgia and Vanderbilt, every other SEC team has at least one embarassing out of conference loss to a non BCA school.  It’s understandable that teams are a little shaky early in the season, but the blame for those losses generally has to fall on the coaches for not getting their players prepared for what should be easy wins. 

The case against:

–John Calipari didn’t win it last year because his talent was too good.  Instead, they decided to give it to Kevin Stallings, I guess for being the only guy in the league that could be a stand in on King of the Hill.

And really, that’s about it.  In my opinion, if Kentucky wins 12 or more games with no sweeps – and no embarassing losses at home – Cal wins his first SEC COY.  The only thing I could see standing in his way is a sweep from Georgia or Vanderbilt, or a team like Auburn feasting on the weakness of the west and gaining media darling status.

So, what do you think?